Monday, February 20, 2017

The Resurrection of Jesus: Miracles, Sources, & Bedrock

Michael
R. Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus: A
New Historiographical Approach (IVP Academic, 2011), represents a
substantive scholarly contribution to the wealth of academic literature on the
resurrection. In this series of 4 blog
essays, I am providing an in-depth interaction with Licona’s careful work. In the first essay (February 16) I covered
the book’s overall structure and the first section (on Philosophy of
History). In this post, I will
historical inquiry & miracle-claims (Chapter 2), source-material pertaining
to the post-mortem fate of Jesus (Chapter 3), and historical bedrock data that
historical hypotheses regarding Jesus’ fate must account for (Chapter 4).

Chapter 2 – The Historian and Miracles

Licona’s
purpose in discussing horizons is to encourage historical Jesus scholars not to
a priori reject certain hypotheses or
possibilities due to their worldview presuppositions.

His target is already relatively clear in
chapter one (see his detailed discussion of naturalistic horizons limiting or
directing their biblical studies on pages 42-46); chapter two brings the issue
out into the open. Can historians responsibly
investigate miracle-claims? If not,
there is no purpose in inquiring into the historicity of Jesus’
resurrection—“As historians we have reached a dead end.” (134) Licona responds
to arguments by various scholars—Hume, McCullagh, John Meier, Ehrman,
Wedderburn and Dunn—that suggest one cannot profitably investigate the
historicity of miracle-claims. Licona
argues that the principle of analogy (first raised by Hume, later formalized by
Troeltsch) is “too restrictive,” making it too difficult to “recognize unique
events” and to make “progress in science.” (141) Furthermore, Licona notes that
using the principle of analogy to rule
out past miracle-claims essentially insists, without evaluation or defense,
that miracles do not occur today either—theists could just as easily use the
principle of analogy to insist that because
miracles do occur today, miracles
also could have occurred in the past (142).
Licona’s critique of arguments against historical investigation of
miracles is persuasive, particularly when he discusses the possibility of a
theistic worldview as a “game changer” regarding Christ’s resurrection
(175). If scholars presuppose a theistic
worldview, their historical hypotheses will be “worldview dependent” (175); but
the same hazard awaits scholars who a
priori exclude a miraculous resurrection from their pool of live options. Licona concludes that “there are no sound
reasons . . . for prohibiting historians from investigating a miracle-claim.”
(189)

Licona
closes his crucial introductory section with a discussion of the burden of
proof required for historical hypotheses in general, and miracle-claims in
particular. He insists (contra Sagan)
that miracle-claims do not require “extraordinary evidence” (194); rather, they
require “additional evidence.” (195) In a helpful and succinct summary, Licona
suggests that “There is a difference between demonstrating the historical
superiority of a hypothesis and convincing a particular historian to give up a
deeply held view.” (197) In other words, a historian can acknowledge that his
hypothesis is the best explanation of the relevant historical data, even though
his hypothesis runs contrary to worldview horizons of some other historians and
is thereby unconvincing to them.

The
first two chapters are, in my opinion, the strongest and most innovative of the
entire book. Licona effectively reframes
the historical debate concerning Jesus’ resurrection. He challenges the reigning biases of
mainstream biblical scholarship, appealing to standard historiographical tenets
and practices of professional historians.
He further challenges the governing rejection of historical
miracle-claims, insisting that historians can responsibly investigate such
claims in a worldview-neutral fashion (employing his six tools for bracketing
or setting aside one’s own presuppositions) without falling into credulity or
naïve acceptance of non-evidenced legends, myths, superstitions, and
miracle-claims. Licona has made a truly
worthwhile contribution to historical study of Jesus’ resurrection; his
arguments and conclusions will need to be taken into consideration by all
future historical Jesus studies.

“Historians
must begin by identifying sources relevant to their investigation. The historian will mine these for data, which
will eventually be employed as evidence
for a preferred hypothesis.” (200) Accordingly, Licona next launches into a
discussion of the primary sources pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth (particularly
his death and post-mortem fate). Relying
heavily upon the research and insights of N. T. Wright, Licona examines sources
from the first three centuries C.E. and assigns them ratings according to their
historical usefulness: “unlikely, possible-minus, possible, possible-plus,
highly probable, indeterminate, and not useful.” (201) Licona’s primary concern
is to identify textual material that has the highest likelihood of hearkening
back to apostolic witness and teaching.
He identifies the (undisputed) Pauline epistles as the most promising
and useful historical sources, followed by 1
Clement, the canonical Gospels, the speeches in Acts, some material in
Tacitus, Josephus, Thallus, and Polycarp.

Licona
engages with the hypotheses of various scholars that Q, the Gospel of Thomas,
and the Gospel of Peter (or older
material now embedded within it) supply more helpful and authentic historical
material for studying the historical Jesus.
He is particularly perceptive in his critique of Helmut Koester and John
Dominic Crossan’s use of the Gospel of
Thomas (257-67). Licona notes
Nicholas Perrin’s published works (from 2002 onward) postulating that Thomas is a late second-century
Syriac-Christian creation based upon Tatian’s Diatessaron (265-66), and laments that Koester and Crossan have
since failed “even to mention Perrin’s research!” (266)

Chapter 4 – The Historical Bedrock
Pertaining to the Fate of Jesus

A
viable historical hypothesis has to account for the relevant historical
facts—what Licona terms “historical bedrock.” (277-78) Historical bedrock consists
of “strongly evidenced” facts which “contemporary scholars nearly unanimously
regard . . . as historical facts.” (278) Licona proceeds to present the
historical bedrock pertaining to Jesus of Nazareth, facts which are assented to
by nearly all biblical scholars spanning a wide theological spectrum
(279-80). Licona first presents Jesus’
nature as a miracle-worker and exorcist and his self-understanding as God’s
eschatological agent as bedrock concerning his life (281-84). He suggests that Jesus’ “predictions of his
death and vindication/resurrection” fall just outside of bedrock status, but
nonetheless launches a lengthy defense of their historicity (284-302).

Licona
then defends the historicity of Gary Habermas’ three “minimal facts” pertaining
to Jesus’ post-mortem fate: (1) Jesus died by crucifixion (303-17); (2)
subsequent to Jesus’ death, “a number of his followers had experiences, in
individual and group settings, that convinced them Jesus had risen from the
dead and had appeared to them in some manner.” (372, larger argument 318-72);
and (3) Saul of Tarsus (later renamed Paul) was a vehement foe of the early
Christian church until he had a conversion experience which he understood to be
an encounter with the resurrected Jesus (373-439). Licona identifies two additional historical
facts which, while strongly-evidenced and widely-accepted, fall (in his
opinion) just outside of the historical bedrock—the conversion of Jesus’
skeptical brother James (440-60), and the discovery of the empty tomb (461-62)—but
treats them as “second-order” facts that will not be utilized when he weighs
competing historical hypotheses.

Throughout
Chapter Four, Licona displays deft exegetical skills and exhaustive research
capabilities. He provides excellent
discussion of the Greek text—for example, illustrating Paul’s usage of ‘εν
εμοι’ by translating (in context) every occurrence of the phrase in his letters
(376-77). Licona also provides an
exhaustive analysis of every occurrence of the Greek words ψυχικον and
πνευματικον (so crucial to the discussion of Paul’s understanding of the
resurrection body, especially in 1 Corinthians 15:44) in extant Greek
literature from the eighth century B.C.E. through the third century C.E.
(401-24). Licona argues quite
persuasively that Paul (in 1 Cor. 15 and elsewhere) is not contrasting material
and immaterial objects/bodies, but rather referring to two different “modes of
existence.” (410) Throughout the Pauline letters, “Paul never regarded the
final postmortem state of believers to be one of disembodiment” (436); thus,
given that Paul saw Jesus’ resurrection as the pattern for believers’ future
resurrections, Paul shared the Gospel-writers’ view of Jesus’ resurrection as a
corporeal resurrection (436-37).

Together,
Chapters Three and Four form the historical backbone of Licona’s work. He summarizes the historical sources
available for historical Jesus research, and identifies fairly and
even-handedly the “bedrock,” those historical facts so undisputed that they
must be accounted for by any adequate historical hypothesis. His diligence here will pay off when he turns
his focus to weighing the various hypotheses that seek to account for Jesus’
post-mortem fate. It is to those
hypotheses, and Licona’s assessment of them, that we will turn in the next blog
post!